Today, a handful of reader responses to past Vines, and then I tackle a bit of the backlog.

Sarah,

I’ve been meaning to send this info to you since 9/11, but have hesitated because your readers tend to be a “younger” crowd — however, I now realize this information may, unfortunately, be useful to many people.

My husband died July 21 of this year.I’m in a city, alone, with only “acquaintances” at work, family two hours away…he was ill for a long time, and we only had each other.So, in my search for others who can truly understand the loss of a spouse, I stumbled across Widownet.org, and it has truly been a wonderful resource.If you browse the “New Message Board,” you can see the many forums available, including “Gay/Lesbian” and “Almost Widowed,” as well as “Questions from Non-Widowed Persons.”There has also been added a forum titled “9/11/01,” in anticipation of the special needs that families of the terrorist attacks may have, a need to get together from their unique perspective.In addition to the board, they also have an email circle — it’s really nice to come home to an empty house, and know there are 40 emails waiting for you, from people that “get it.”

If you see fit to pass this along, I think it could help some.

Thank you.
JC

Thanks for passing this along, JC, and I’m sorry about your husband.

Dear Sars,

Love your site and the advice you dish out.You always seem to know whether someone needs a hug or a swift kick in the ass.

I just read the letter from Wallflower.Five years ago, that could have been me.I have always had a hard time meeting new people, and by the time I got to high school I had no friends.None.I went to boarding school for 11th and 12th grades, hoping to make some friends, which I did.But it took a while.And you’re totally right that the friends you make the first week/month/semester rarely “stick,” as you put it.When I got to college, I was desperate to make friends.I tried to hang out with the other girls on my floor, but they decided that they wanted nothing to do with me.I still tried to hang out with them anyway, because I was convinced that I could make them like me.Big mistake.I somehow managed to make it through freshman year without tearing out all my hair in anguish, and when I returned for sophomore year, I decided to hang out with a completely different group of people.This tactic actually worked, and I found a group of people who accepted me for my quiet, nerdy, intellectual, and more-than-occasionally-snobby self: other quiet, nerdy, intellectual snobs.Much like Wallflower, I felt like the most dull person in the world until I met people who shared my interests.It’s worth pointing out to Wallflower that among this group of roughly ten, there are exactly four that I would call close friends.One of them is now my boyfriend (hurrah!).

So, my advice to Wallflower is much like yours, but with this addendum: don’t try to be something you’re not.I tried to make friends by pretending to be a bubbly party girl, and it just made me miserable.When I finally accepted the fact that I don’t like loud music and drunk people, and that I do like intense arguments over whether or not the Smurfs were communists, I became more comfortable with myself, and other people noticed.It sounds lame, but you really do need to like yourself before others will like you.

Cheers,
Friend-ful at Last

Dear Friend-ful,

Exactly.Pretending to be something you aren’t is exhausting and, ultimately, fruitless.

And for the record, the Smurfs?Communists.Definitely.

Hi Sars,

I just wanted to say that I very much agree with your points about what constitutes a “good” family.And the psychological/sociological literature would agree with you — in fact, I recently did a lecture for my social stratification class about this very topic (well, about the symbolic stratification between types of families that has been constructed by the media and in political circles).While the early 1990s saw loads of political rhetoric about the supremacy of the “traditional” family, that argument is essentially crap.On the surface it probably seemed like a convincing argument, but those “family values” pundits basically accomplished their goal by citing questionable research, citing each other as sources, and by repeating the same damn thing over and over.If you actually look at the research, the number of parents don’t really matter in terms of child well-being — it’s the social environment in the household, as you pointed out, as well as the family’s resources.Judith Stacey wrote an interesting book about the whole family values movement entitled In the Name of the Family (just mentioning it since it would be my source for the commentary above).

Just thought I’d chime in with my two cents and put four years of grad school to some use…

Georgiagirl

Dear Georgiagirl,

Right on.

I think it’s also worth noting that the family-values folk don’t tend to throw around that rhetoric regarding widows; it’s only women who have chosen to raise their children on their own or left bad marriages that get the indictment.Go figure.

[10/8/01]

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